Saturday, September 14, 2013

Is Your Family Dysfunctional? What is a Functional Family?

I don’t know when dysfunctional became an adjective routinely attached to the noun family, but in my years of pastoral counseling the common denominator has been a complaint that “my family is so dysfunctional.” It’s led me to wonder what a functional family might be, and does anybody actually live in one? Before we get into that, it’s important to note that there are families, and family like groups, that are habitually self destructive, imposing serious physical and emotional damage on one another. They are not the subject of this article.

I recently posed a question on FaceBook of what a functional family might be. The most common responses asserted that they are families where all work together for the good life of each. Each member enjoys being a part of the happy whole family, and each works to keep it happy. They are a group of people living together, helping each other, because they love each other. Give me a break! Where, other than The Brady Bunch and Leave it to Beaver, did that come from? I don’t believe images such as these are helpful because no one’s family lives up to them. Each of our families falls short, some more short than others. It leads to the unrealistic expectation that, since we don’t live in that kind of family, our family must be dysfunctional, and we have been shortchanged for having to be a part of it while others are enjoying the fullness of life in their functional families.

Who sold us an ideal like that? I’ll tell where it didn’t come from. It’s not biblical and it doesn’t fit into the stories of Christian faith. True, we are commanded to love one another as Christ loved us, but we don’t do it very well, and those who have learned how to live into the fullness of Christ’s love have most often paid dearly for it.

A functional family is a family that is good enough, a family that muddles through the vicissitudes of life with endurance, hope, and an ability to laugh and cry at the same time. I used an analogy at the fire department this morning that I think I’ll use here as well. Our department has an old ladder truck no longer certified as safe for fire work. Is it functional or dysfunctional? It starts and keeps running. It can get from point A to point B without breaking down (very often). It’s ladder goes up and down, and is safe enough for something like, say, tree trimming. It’s functional. It can do the essential work of a truck with a ladder on it.

Functional families are like that, and most of us, but not all, are members of one. Functional families can do the essential work of raising up new generations with a reasonable expectation that they will be well enough equipped to enter adulthood in an OK way. They are able to maintain relationships with siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles, and even parents, through strains, fights, separations, tragedy, disappointments, successes, celebrations, good fortune and ill, hurt feelings, joy, delight, and tears.

One respondent to my FaceBook question put it this way.

Scott Peck defines "community" as a group of people who fight gracefully. So I guess one element has to be managing conflict, which means dealing with differences and keeping relationships intact. A functional family probably starts with parents of reasonable emotional intelligence, who make each other's needs as important as their own, yet give each other the space to be their own person.

I like that, “reasonable emotional intelligence.” It’s not perfection, it’s good enough. Functional families are good enough. They are like your family and my family, including all the skeletons in the closet. But wait, surely we Christians have higher standards than that. Let’s turn to the bible.

Consider Jesus’ family. As far as we know, his mother was widowed at a fairly young age. Her eldest son, a skilled carpenter, could have supported her financially, as was his legal duty, but he wandered off to be an itinerant preacher. At one point his family thought he might be crazy, and tried to capture him. In the end, he was hung as a criminal leaving his mom to weep at the foot of his cross. I don’t think that story line would be acceptable to the Bradys or Cleavers. James and John, working in their dad’s successful fishing business just up and left to follow Jesus with no warning at all. Talk about disrespect. The last thing we heard about Peter was that he was off on a mission leaving wife and mother-in-law to fend for themselves as best they could. Did he have any kids? Abraham had sex with his wife’s maid, and that didn’t end well for the maid. David’s son pulled a coup d’etat on him. It would probably be a good idea to put the bible down now and look elsewhere.

I suggest the marriage ceremony. In our tradition we invite the couple being married to live into a covenant that includes foreknowledge that their life together will bring mutual joy, help and comfort, prosperity and adversity, sickness and health, riches and poverty, better times and worse times. It’s a life, that with God’s help and God’s blessing, will be a greater gift than anything else could possibly be, and yet it will come with that whole range of peaks and valleys. Perfection is never promised.

Yes, each of us is disappointed with something about how our parents raised us, what our siblings did to us, and all the squabbling and petty jealousies that raise their ugly heads whenever we get together, but that doesn’t make our families dysfunctional. It just marks them as normal as most other families. If your family is truly dysfunctional you will probably need more than a pastoral counselor. You will need crisis intervention, child protective services, a restraining order, serious psychological care, and God’s strongest saving grace.

1 comment:

Laws
said...

This is such an honest approach to the whole thing. I know that anyone with any professional background trained in this 'dysfunctional family' topic giving out advice has only the very best of intentions of helping people out there who are struggling. But the reality is even when parents try the best they can things still don't always turn out they way they had hoped. Things crop up in families that you never see coming and sometimes it makes you feel like you have failed somehow. Am pretty certain not all adult kids shortcomings are due to inappropriate parenting. Kids can be treated equally but still have jealousies etc. Guess its just part of life. Thanks for making it all seem more normal.

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About Me

Walla Walla, Washington, Way out west in a green valley up against some small mountains, United States

I'm Steven Woolley, a retired small town preacher. I've spent many years in the big city, had a long career in public policy consulting, been an adjunct professor, traveled around the globe, done a few thngs no one should. In the end I'm just a retired country parson.